Ashford specifies Aico radiolink smoke alarms

Ashford Borough Council is now officially specifying Aico Ei RadioLINK mains powered smoke alarm systems on all new installations.

Ashford Borough Council is now officially specifying Aico Ei RadioLINK mains powered smoke alarm systems on all new installations, following successful trials on three storey town houses with demanding interconnection requirements.

The Borough of Ashford is one of the largest Boroughs in Kent; its Housing Services section looks after some 5,500 properties including five and six storey residential blocks of flats, houses and bungalows.

"We first started using Aico Ei alarms some five years ago," recalls Assistant Planned Maintenance Manager David Green.

"We discussed smoke detector specification with our electricians and asked which mains-powered smoke alarms they preferred, and they came back with the Aico Ei Easi-fit 160 Series with ten year plus Lithium cell back-up.

They liked the Easi-fit design.

We knew it was important to have quality back-up, so we were both happy with the choice.

After a risk assessment, Ashford decided to launch its fire safety initiative by first installing the Aico Ei160s into individual flats and maisonettes in the taller blocks.

From the start, interconnecting smoke alarms within a flat or maisonette was an essential specification requirement.

"It's always been our policy to interconnect," says David Green.

"It simply increases safety - and safety is paramount to us.

When a fire starts, you want every alarm in a property to start going off.

In the taller blocks, the Aico Ei160s featured hard-wired interconnection but there was a fairly convenient route for the cabling.

However, when the council came to protecting its 30-or-so three storey town houses it was a very different matter.

There was no obvious hard-wiring route.

Interconnection would be expensive, difficult, time consuming - and create a lot of disturbance to tenants' decorations.

"By a stroke of luck, I was contacted by an Aico Sales Representative," recalls David Green.

"He told me about Aico's new RadioLINK wireless interconnect system, which did away with hard-wiring but was fully compatible with the 160 alarms we were specifying.

Officially, it hadn't been launched yet - but we agreed to trial it.

"As it turned out, RadioLINK fitted our needs perfectly and our contractors Larkin Installation Limited fitted the systems with no problems at all.

We had an alarm on each of the three floors, ionisations on the ground and second floors and opticals on the first floor where the kitchen area was.

All were interconnected wirelessly by RadioLINK".

After their positive experience with RadioLINK in their town house properties, Ashford elected to make RadioLINK with Aico Ei160 alarms their choice for all future installations.

Presently, the council is fitting RadioLINK technology into all properties that become void, with the installation work being carried out by B Ball Contractors of Ashford.

"Although there are extra costs involved with RadioLINK, our contractors can finish the job much quicker," says David Green.

"That suits us nicely, since we have a particularly tight turn around time on void properties.

When electrical refurbishment is called for on a property, contractors Serco Local Government and Booker and Best are now also installing Aico RadioLINK as a matter of course, while Ashford's fire safety programme is now extending to its estates and general housing.

"In all the time we've been fitting Aico RadioLINK with Ei160 Series alarms, I've had negligible comeback on them," comments David Green.

"There's so little disturbance to tenants.

They just see a smoke alarm go up on the ceiling.

We're pleased because there's no chance of tenants accidentally severing the interconnection between alarms, as there is with hard-wired systems - so that they're benefiting from an even greater level of protection.

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